Waiting

I note the New Hythe Birder (see links, "Excellent blog") has already seen a water vole this year, and my friend on the Wild About Britain forum's spotted one too. What with this and Bill Oddie handling a vole on tv this week, plus a wv mention in the BBC Wildlife magazine, I felt all fired up to go looking for myself.
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Did a huge litter pick down at White Lion Meadow - no trolleys in the water, but over two carrier bags' worth of rubbish all over the banks - and looked for prints and latrines while I was there. No luck, or at least, nothing definitely water vole. But I did meet a girl who told me she'd seen one up at the Tesco end a couple of days ago, and it had a brown (non-ratty) tail, so fingers crossed.

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After that I went for a walk at Brick Kiln Farm to see if there were any signs there. As usual there were plenty of field vole feeding stations and droppings, but nothing I could have said for certain was water vole. Then, just as I was about to leave, I found this skull which I'm fairly certain is. The yellow teeth, which water voles use for digging, show this particular animal was an adult.
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Hope I see some live ones in a month or two. It's hard work blogging about invisible voles.

Vole in the Hole

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/photo.do?photo=2319&category=9&group=1

Thanks to Sue for alerting me to this. I had seen it before, but I didn't know it was available online.

Better Blackbird

Courtesy of John Harding, and also this lovely video of Rosie Rees's from last year: http://www.vimeo.com/622188

Blackbird

Managed to duck between the showers and do a litter pick on the section round the bridge at White Lion Meadow. Noted these prints - rat or water vole? - and a trolley completely submerged.

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The part-albino blackbird I've been seeing for a couple of years now. How long do blackbirds live?

Chicken Out

About a Brook supports the Chicken-Out campaign! http://www.chickenout.tv/
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If you're local to Whitchurch and you're keen on supporting farm shops, three good ones to try are: Fordhall Farm - http://store.foodcommerce.co.uk/fordhall/
Baa Hill Farm - http://www.sausagelinks.co.uk/producer_detail.asp?id=536
and Agden Hall Farm near Malpas (beef only).
Wilkeseley Vegetable Hampers are good, too: http://rootsoftheearth.org/

Otters

Excellent talk last night on otters by Emma Broad, Wrexham County Borough Biodiversity Officer. Otters are good because they drive out mink, and although they do take the odd water vole, they don't wipe out whole colonies like female mink do. It was great to hear how they'd recovered in the UK after almost disappearing due to pollution (hunting didn't help, either). It gives me hope for the water vole situation.
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I include this photo of otter spraint I found last summer in Whitchurch Country Park. Definitely otter because it smelt vaguely fishy and almost fragrant, not foul like mink scat. I'll be looking out for more this year. Didn't know this before Emma's talk, but if you find a dead otter on the road, you should always report it.
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The brook outside Tesco is currently clear of trolleys; the one pictured below was removed within a day or so. I don't know whether this is due to better management, or the fact that these new locking-wheel ones are much more expensive and therefore can't be left to rot. Still waiting to speak to the manager about it.

Happy New Year: sigh.